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Downstream From a Slippery EPA

In the aftermath of the Gold King spill, the agency is holding itself to a lower standard than polluters.

By

Ryan Flynn

Feb. 29, 2016 7:19 p.m. ET

The bright yellow water that gushed from Colorado’s Gold King mine and into the Animas River last summer has dissipated, but the environmental disaster continues downstream. An estimated 880,000 pounds of lead and other metals poured out of the Gold King in August when the Environmental Protection Agency fumbled a construction project and blew out the mine’s plug.

This water raced down the Animas River in mountainous Colorado, and then meandered gradually through my state of New Mexico, the territory of the Navajo Nation...